Mumbai: After an overnight pause, the Sensex once again went into a tailspin losing by 116 points at close as stocks reeled under pressure on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) today (Feb 25, 2004).

Taking a cue from net sales of Rs 168 crore on Monday (Feb 23, 2004) by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), retailers as well as operators resorted to heavy sell-off, unwinding their long positions ahead of the expiry of February Contract in the Futures and Options tomorrow.

Depicting the downtrend, the BSE benchmark 30-share index gradually moved downwards to the intra-day low at 5,606.86 after opening on a promising note at 5,746.79, and later ended sharply lower at 5,618 as against yesterday's close of 5,734.44, a net fall of 116.29 points or 2.03 per cent.

FIIs, which seemed to have slowed down activity in the last couple of sessions after making hefty net investments in last week, reportedly were sellers in blue-chip stocks.

Dredging Corp, a candidate in the Government's public offerings list and was quoted at Rs 527.75 per share at close yesterday, witnessed heavy selling triggered by announcement of floor price of Rs 385 to 400 per share for public offering.

The sentiment is unlikely to change for better unless participation of retailers and operators.

Key shares like RIL, SBI, Tisco, Tata Motors, ONGC, ITC, HPCL, Infosys Tech, MTNL, Grasim, BHEL, ACC, GACL, HLL and others recorded sharp losses due to selling pressure.

Cipla, Dr Reddy's Lab, Zee Telefilms and L&T, however, bucked the trend and scored handsome gains on value buying.

The broad-based BSE-100 index dipped by 75.95 points to 2,885.12 from previous close of 2,961.07.